With federal subsidies for ship operation under the America flag
at last looking likely Bernard N. Baker decided, perhaps a little prematurely,
to build up a fleet of American-flagged steamers. With a loan from J. P. Morgan
he ordered two Minne class ships and four freighters from American yards. But
the shipping subsidy bill failed and the International Mercantile Marine Company,
which now owned the Atlantic Transport Line, decided to sell these ships as
soon as possible because they could not be operated profitably under the American
flag.

This ship was laid down on June 7, 1902, as the Minnelora
for the Atlantic Transport Line, but she changed hands while still under
construction and was launched on July 24, 1903, as the Mongolia. She
was delivered to her new owner, the wealthy railroad executive Edward H. Harriman,
on February 5, 1904. Initially she was leased to the Pacific Mail Steamship
Company but in 1911, two years after Harriman's death, Mongolia was sold
to it. She and her sister were used on the on the trans-Pacific service (San
Francisco, Hawaii, Hong Kong) from 1904 to 1915.

The Mongolia went aground on the western side of Midway Island
on September 16, 1906, but succeeded in getting off again even before the arrival
of the ships Buford,
Iroquois, and Restorer, all of which went to her aid from Honolulu.
She later ran aground off the Japanese coast at Moji on April 23, 1907, and
again at Idzu on July 16, 1910.

In 1915, according to the New York Times, the Pacific
Mail Steamship Company began selling its fleet "owing to inability to compete
with Japanese steamship lines in the Pacific trade under the La Follette Seaman's
Law." The five largest steamers in the fleet (Manchuria,
Mongolia, Korea, Siberia,
and China) were sold to the Atlantic Transport
Company of West Virginia for $5,250,000 to replace wartime losses. Evidently
$1,500,000 was paid for Mongolia. When the Mongolia arrived in
San Francisco for the last time on October 27, 1915, she was searched by customs
officials acting on a tip, who found 86 Chinese stowaways on board. "There
were stowaways everywhere imaginable, some in places that spoke of great inventiveness,"
according to Robert Barde's article about the incident in Steamboat Bill.

The Mongolia steamed out of San Francisco on November 9
bound for New York via Cape Horn. She commenced her first voyage to London on
January 5, 1916. Her ninth and final voyage on this route started on March 18,
1917, and afterwards she became a U.S. Transport (#SP 1615). On 19 April 1917,
en route to England, she engaged a German submarine in the Channel and claimed
to have sunk it with her first shot  the first round fired by American
forces in the war. The Mongolia was taken over by the Navy in April 1918
to serve as a transport and made 13 voyages to France before she was decommissioned
on 11 September, 1919, and returned to her owners. See
Joe Hartwell's Mongolia page for more wartime images and information.

The International Mercantile Marine Company wanted to use the
Mongolia on the Atlantic Transport Line's first class only London to
New York passenger cargo service after the war ended but the U.S. Shipping Board
would not permit the service to be resumed. As a result the Mongolia
was instead assigned to the American Line and in Jan.1920 commenced her first
voyage for it from New York to Hamburg, Antwerp, Southampton and New York. From
February 1925 she sailed on the New York to Panama and San Francisco route for
the Panama Pacific Line ("a new venture by the IMM to run an intercoastal service
between New York and California"). Her last voyage on this route, which ended
in October 1929, was marred by the suicide of a troubled young man in tourist
class and the death of a 37-year old lady passenger.

In October of 1929 she was replaced on the West Coast run by the
new turbo-electric liner Pennsylvania and sold to the Dollar Line. She
was reconditioned (rebuilt to 15,575 gross tons), fitted with accommodation
for 300 first class passengers and renamed President Fillmore. She
sailed for this line on its celebrated "round the world" service until
November 1931 when she was laid up at New York. While laid up, she came under
the ownership of American President Line in 1938. She was sold to Wallem &
Co. in February 1940, transferred to Panamanian registry, and renamed Panamanian.
She was badly damaged by fire while loading flour at the north wharf at Fremantle
in January 1945. Although repaired after the fire she was scrapped at Hong Kong
in 1947-48.

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